Dancer in the Flames

By Stephen Solomita

The NYPD hides a killer within the ranks in this “dark, satisfying” hard-boiled noir thriller (Publishers Weekly).
 
Detective Boots Littlewood of Brooklyn’s Sixty-Fourth Precinct has been assigned an investigation that’s hitting close to home: the murder of his police captain. It’s been called another tragic cop killing. Boots suspects something closer to an organized hit—and he knows in his gut that the perp in custody is an innocent man. Boots’s new partner, “Crazy” Jill Kelly, is taking it personally, too. The daughter of a murdered officer, she’s got a quick temper, a vengeful streak, and perfect aim.
 
Once Boots and Jill hit the streets, they uncover more than dirty secrets. The investigation reaches back a decade to the sordid serial crimes of the Lipstick Killer—and ahead to a cesspool of corruption and conspiracy that taints the badges of New York’s finest. But as Boots and Jill prepare for hunting season, they realize that they themselves are being hunted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781780103587

Stephen Solomita

Stephen Solomita, a former New York taxi driver, is the creator of the popular cop-turned-private-eye Stanley Moodrow, He lives in New York City.

Book preview

ONE

Detective Boots Littlewood shook out a handful of Tic Tacs and popped them into his mouth. He sucked on them for a moment, intending to savor the flavor, as he liked to say. But on this particular night, what with the disagreeable job at hand and the unusually cold April weather, he quickly grew impatient. Very deliberately, he straightened the lapels of his overcoat before crunching down hard enough to produce an explosion of spearmint that saturated his entire mouth, from his lips to his tonsils. Finally, he rang the doorbell.

The outdoor light came on a moment later and a face appeared in the door’s small window, a round face made rounder by the window’s beveled glass. Then the door opened to reveal Frankie Drago, the man Littlewood had come to see.

‘Gimme a break, Boots,’ Drago said. ‘It’s after ten o’clock.’

Detective Littlewood stepped into the house, forcing Drago aside. As he passed, he pulled a transistor radio from his overcoat and held it up for Drago’s inspection.

‘Batteries went dead on me,’ he explained. ‘I don’t wanna miss the end of the Yankee game. Plus, I’m killin’ two birds with one stone. The autopsy’s complete and you asked me to stop by, let you know how it went.’

Passing through the foyer and into the living room, Boots placed himself in front of a gigantic flat-screen television. He watched the Yankee reliever, Joba Chamberlain, deliver a high outside fastball that David Ortiz, the Red Sox batter, was taking all the way. Then he said, ‘You don’t mind, I’m gonna keep an eye on the game while we talk. I got a bet down, if you remember.’

Boots shrugged off his overcoat, folded it across the back of an armchair, finally settled himself on the couch, only pausing to tug at the crease in his trousers and press the remote’s mute button.

‘You think I don’t know you got a bet down?’ Drago followed Boots into the room. ‘I’m your goddamned bookie.’

‘Hey, do me a favor, Frankie. Lay off. I got a thing about takin’ the Lord’s name in vain. Which you already know.’

Drago was about to respond when Chamberlain began his wind-up and the Yankee catcher stepped to the left, setting a target on the inside corner, a target Joba missed by eight inches when the ball sailed away from Ortiz before centering itself, belt-high, over the heart of the plate.

‘You mother-fucker,’ Boots shouted as the bat of David Ortiz ripped through the hitting zone.

‘Boots,’ Frankie Drago said, ‘you can open your eyes. He popped it up.’

Littlewood followed instructions, regaining his sight in time to watch the ball drop into Bret Gardner’s glove. The score was tied six–six and the Yankees were coming up to start the tenth inning.

‘Chamberlain,’ Boots complained, ‘that prick. You see him walkin’ around out there? This is a guy, lemme tell ya, he’d rather be takin’ a shower.’

‘Cut the man some slack,’ Drago objected. ‘It’s thirty degrees and he’s tryin’ to grip a goddamned baseball.’

‘Frankie, what’d I just say about blasphemy? Have some consideration here.’

Drago raised a meaty hand to scratch his left ear. He was a short man, grossly overweight, and his movements were slow enough to appear grave. ‘Didn’t you just call Chamberlain a prick and a mother-fucker?’ he asked.

‘That’s different.’ Boots turned far enough to look up at the bookie. ‘The Commandment only says you can’t take the Lord’s name in vain.’

Drago sat down in a massive rocking chair to Littlewood’s left. For a long moment, he stared at the side of the detective’s head. Drago had known Boots for more than twenty years – their relationship went all the way back to high school. And that was the wonder of it, because he still couldn’t peg the big cop. The gray three-piece suit? The baby-blue tie? The gleaming ankle-high boots? The nearly transparent silver socks? The coarse iron-gray hair that hugged the top of his head as though afraid to move?

‘Bullshit’ was the word that popped into Drago’s mind. Just like the rest of the cop’s life. Here was a man who went to mass every Sunday, but tolerated Frankie Drago because he needed a place to lay down his bets. Here was a man who called himself Boots because his real name, Irwin, didn’t square with his image. You couldn’t be a hard-ass cop in a suit too expensive for your paycheck and have a name like Irwin Littlewood. Impossible. So, whatta ya do? You make up a name that fits your image like the handmade Italian boots on your feet. Then, as if that wasn’t phony enough, you swear that you only spend that kinda money on shoes because you got bad wheels.

Drago ran a hand across the top of his nearly bald head. It came back slick with sweat and he wiped it on his pants. ‘You wanna tell me what happened?’ he asked.

‘Wait a second, Frankie.’

The requested second stretched on for a full two minutes as the Red Sox pitcher, Alfredo Aceves, walked the Yankee center fielder, Curtis Granderson, on four straight pitches. The Red Sox manager, Bobby Valentine, was out of the dugout before the catcher reached into his mitt for the ball, his head shaking in disgust as he signaled for Tim Wakefield, the last available pitcher in the Red Sox bullpen.

Boots crossed his legs and let his gaze drift over to Frankie Drago as the network cut to a commercial. ‘It’s a question here of how much you wanna know, Frankie,’ he said. ‘Bein’ as we’re talkin’ about your sister.’

When Drago shook his head, his many chins slogged from side to side like water in a bathtub. ‘It can’t be no worse,’ he insisted, ‘than what I already imagined.’

‘OK, then let me get this part over with. Angie was naked when we found her body, with her arms tied behind her back and a thin rope tied around her neck. There was an unused condom next to her leg, still in its wrapper, a ribbed Trojan. Keep in mind, Frankie, this was a disposal site. She wasn’t killed in Prospect Park.’

Drago thought it over for a moment, then said, ‘Angie, she was forty-nine years old and looked every day of it. Why would . . .?’

‘That part doesn’t matter. Some of these perverts specialize in older women, and some of them just grab whoever’s available. Anyway, we at least determined when her body was put in the park.’

‘How’s that?’

‘You remember March fifteenth? The blizzard?’

‘Of course. I didn’t get my car out for a week.’

‘Well, we found a little snow beneath Angie’s body and we’re certain there wasn’t any snow on the ground before the storm hit. That means the blizzard started right before she was dumped, two days after your mom reported her missing.’

‘You think she was held somewhere?’

‘There’s no other possibility.’

‘Was she . . .’

‘Dead or alive?’

‘Yeah.’

‘She was dead, Frankie.’

‘And you can tell how long?’

‘Thirty-six to forty-eight hours, accordin’ to the pathologist who did the autopsy. That’s how long the perp held on to her body.’

Boots’s attention returned to the television as Tim Wakefield threw his last warm-up pitch. ‘Valentine’s gotta be pissing his pants,’ he told Frankie.

‘He ain’t the only one,’ Drago replied. ‘I took a lotta Yankee action this afternoon. They win, I’m up shit creek.’

‘You didn’t lay it off?’

‘Sometimes in life you gotta take a chance, Boots. With Beckett goin’ against Freddy Garcia, I figured I had an edge.’

Boots shook his head. ‘The way I saw it, with all the injuries to the Red Sox bullpen, after the Yanks got past Beckett, they’d be the ones with the edge.’

An instant later, the Red Sox pitcher took an important step toward neutralizing whatever edge the Yankees may have had when he picked off Curtis Granderson. Boots’s mouth dropped open and his eyes widened as he absorbed the extent of his misfortune. He started to speak, stopped, then started again. Still, no words came out.

Flashing a wolf’s grin, Drago took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. He lit one up, then blew a narrow line of smoke at the ceiling. ‘So,’ he asked, ‘how’s the quittin’ goin’? You still nicotine-free? It’s been, what, a month now?’

Boots drew his arms over his chest, but didn’t respond. Wakefield’s knuckleball was dancing out of the strike zone and Mark Teixeira, the Yankee’s first baseman, was flailing away. It came as no surprise when he struck out on the fourth pitch.

‘Could we get back to Angie?’ Drago asked. ‘The game’s liable to go on for another two hours.’

‘Angie’s been dead for more than three weeks. She’ll keep.’

‘That’s pretty hard, Boots. It’s not like we’re talkin’ about a stranger. You grew up with Angie and you might wanna consider her last hours.’

‘Right, her last hours. How do you figure they went? What do ya think happened to Angie?’ Boots let his eyes dart from the screen to Drago, then back to the screen. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said as Alex Rodriguez stepped to the plate, ‘I’m listenin’.’

Drago rocked back and forth for a moment before responding. ‘This kinda pervert, Boots, he oughta be shot down like a dog. Forget the handcuffs, forget the lawyers. Shoot him down. Leave him to rot where he falls.’

‘Yeah,’ Boots finally said, ‘but what do you think actually happened? Was she on her way someplace? Did he drag her out of the house without your mom noticing? And where did he take her? And why did he hang on to the body for two days? And why didn’t she put up a fight? I mean, Angie never backed away from anyone, not that I ever noticed. Meanwhile, she doesn’t have a bruise on her body.’

‘What if he had a gun? You put a gun to someone’s head, they tend to get very docile.’

‘And then what?’

‘He forces her into a car and takes her wherever.’

‘And who does the drivin’?’

Drago thought this over for a moment, then said, ‘It’d make more sense if there was two of them.’

‘Yeah, that’s possible, but what I’m thinkin’, it’s most likely she was killed by someone who knew her. A scumbag who lives in the neighborhood. Somebody who could take her by surprise.’

Tim Wakefield finally made a mistake on the fifth pitch he threw to Alex Rodriguez. His knuckleball failed to knuckle and the ball rolled over the outside half of the plate, waist-high, at seventy miles an hour. A few seconds later, it came to rest in the center-field seats, five hundred feet away.

Boots jumped up and did a little dance. ‘Patience,’ he told Drago as he spun around. ‘That’s what it’s all about. That’s the lesson here. A-Rod took four straight pitches, didn’t move the bat an inch. That’s because he knows that hitters are always overmatched. They gotta wait for the pitcher to make a mistake. Hitters hit mistakes.’

‘Yeah? What about Vladimir Guerrero? He hits whatever’s thrown up there.’

‘Fuck Vladimir Guerrero.’

‘And what about Alfonso Soriano?’

‘Fuck him, too.’

Littlewood retrieved his Tic Tacs, shoveled a few into his mouth and crunched down. At the same time, he inhaled deeply, taking the smoky air down into his lungs. ‘So, who do you think it could have been?’ he asked as Nick Swisher stepped up to the plate.

Again, Drago took his time, sucking thoughtfully on his cigarette while he regarded the detective. ‘How about one of the freaks down the fuckin’ block,’ he finally asked.

Drago was referring to a bohemian enclave centered around the subway stop at Bedford Avenue and North Seventh Street, but the cop wasn’t buying. ‘Angie hated those people,’ Boots said. ‘She was strictly old school when it came to preserving her neighborhood. If she asked me, which she didn’t, I would’ve told her the truth. The neighborhood moved out to the burbs thirty years ago. There’s nothin’ left to preserve.’

Boots continued to stare at the television as Wakefield threw one knuckleball after another to Nick Swisher. As usual, Swisher’s attitude was intense. When he swung, as he did on three of the five pitches thrown to him, his bat tore across the plate as though reaching into another dimension. Fortunately for the Red Sox, ball and bat never came within a foot of each other and Swisher slammed his bat into the dirt when he finally struck out to end the inning. The camera lingered on his features for a moment, then cut to the Yankee’s ace reliever, Mariano Rivera, as he trotted across the outfield. Up a run, the Yankees were going with their best.

Boots watched Drago grind the stub of his cigarette into an aluminum ashtray stamped into the shape of a mermaid. His eyes lingered on the butt for a moment before he spoke.

‘What we’re thinkin’ now,’ he told Frankie Drago, ‘is that Angie’s dump site was staged. We’re not thinkin’ her killer was sexually motivated.’

‘You’re sure?’ Drago asked.

Littlewood’s grin was as quick as A-Rod’s bat, here and gone, a blur. ‘First thing is the cause of death, which I’m surprised you didn’t ask me about sooner. Most times, the family asks right away. They wanna know how their loved one died.’

With Boots staring straight into his eyes, Drago had to struggle for words. He could smell the sour stink of his own sweat as it wafted up from his crotch and his armpits. He knew that Boots smelled it, too.

‘So,’ he asked, his voice weaker than he would have liked, ‘you gonna tell me or not?’

‘Blunt force trauma to the back of her head. See, that’s not the way sexual predators kill. I know because I checked with this profiler who works downtown. Stabbing and strangulation, those are the most common methods. True, you also find thrill killers who batter the faces of their victims, but Angie’s face was untouched.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Drago interrupted, ‘didn’t you tell me she had a rope around her neck?’

‘Yeah, I did. But it was put there after she was dead. Likewise for the ligatures on her wrists. That’s what I meant when I said the scene was staged.’

TWO

Drago lit another cigarette and immediately felt better when Boots looked away. He told himself to take the advice he’d given Boots a few minutes before. Calm down. Relax.

‘You spent the last twenty minutes tellin’ me what didn’t happen,’ he finally said. ‘Why don’t you tell me what did happen. So we’ll both know.’

Boots glanced at the television as the Red Sox lead-off hitter, Dustin Pedroia, approached the plate. ‘I think the perp grabbed Angie by the hair,’ he said, ‘then slammed her head into a concrete wall or a concrete floor. Probably once, but no more than twice. I think the killing was impulsive and I think he wished he could take it back afterward.’

Pedroia was batting from the right side against the right-handed Rivera. Strictly old school, he was a dirty-uniform second baseman with a tendency to hit clutch home runs even though he was by far the smallest player on the field.

‘I hate this guy,’ Boots said. ‘He doesn’t give an inch.’

‘Boots . . .’

‘Hang on, Frankie.’

Rivera’s first two pitches, both cutters, started in the center of the strike zone, then broke to the outside, clipping the front corner of the plate. Pedroia took both and both were called strikes. Rivera came inside with his third pitch, uncorking a head-high fastball that put the little second baseman on his back.

Littlewood turned away in disgust. ‘So, what were you sayin’, Frankie?’

‘Nothin’. I don’t know what to say. I’m kinda stunned.’

‘OK, then let me ask you this. You remember I told you the killer hung on to Angie’s body for two days, right? And I asked why he’d do something like that? I mean, if it wasn’t a sex killing?’

‘Yeah?’

‘So now I’m askin’ you again. Why did he keep the body for two days?’

‘How am I supposed to know?’

‘Don’t get your balls in an uproar. I’m just askin’ what you think might’ve happened. I’m askin’ you to put it together. Your sister’s killed in a moment of rage by someone who knows her. After the deed is done, he stashes her body for a couple of days, then dumps her in the woods in Prospect Park. Why do you think he waited?’ Boots turned his attention back to the game. ‘Don’t worry,’ he advised, ‘I’m listenin’ to every word.’

‘All right,’ Drago said as Pedroia took a practice swing, ‘you know what I’m thinkin’? I’m thinkin’ Angie had a lover, somebody in the neighborhood. You remember the way she carried on about loose morals, like she thought the sky was fallin’ when Janet Jackson showed her tit at the Super Bowl? Well, if Angie was doin’ the nasty out of wedlock, she woulda definitely kept it to herself.’

Boots made a little gimme gesture with his hand. ‘Go on. Why would Angie’s lover hold on to her body for two days?’

Drago began to speak as Rivera threw his next pitch, a high fastball that Pedroia took. The count was now two balls and two strikes.

‘Ya gotta figure like this, Boots. If Angie had a boyfriend, he wasn’t no mover and shaker. He had to be an ordinary guy. Remember, you said he killed Angie in a moment of rage, which I could understand, Angie havin’ such a big mouth. But that means he didn’t have a plan goin’ in. So, what can he do? He’s not a killer. He can’t get on the phone, call in a disposal expert like in that movie. But he’s gotta do somethin’, right? And he’s gotta do it pretty quick. Then he hears there’s gonna be a blizzard in a couple of days and he figures the snow will cover her up.’

‘And what happens when the snow melts, like it finally did?’

Drago stared at the side of Littlewood’s head for a moment, then laid his hands on the arms of the chair and began to rock back and forth. ‘That’s why he made it look like a sex crime. He probably thought her body would be in bad shape and you wouldn’t be able to tell what really happened.’

‘Pretty good, Frankie. Credit where credit is due.’ Boots nodded approval. ‘And it mighta happened exactly that way, except for one little thing. Angie didn’t have a lover.’

Drago’s mouth opened, then snapped shut. ‘You’re positive?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘How . . .’

‘How can I be positive?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Because Angie was a virgin when she died. Because she never had a lover in her life.’

Mariano Rivera’s fourth pitch took a sharp break to the outside about twenty feet away from the plate. Well back on his heels after two inside pitches, the best Pedroia could do was flick the bat out there and pray for contact, a prayer that would certainly have gone unanswered if the pitch had been perfect. But the ball traveled across several inches of the plate and Pedroia managed to catch it on the end of the bat, lifting a soft flare that sailed over the head of a leaping Derek Jeter. A moment later, Pedroia was standing on first base and the Boston fans were again on their feet.

‘Did you see that?’ Boots slammed his fist into his palm. ‘The little prick couldn’t hit that pitch again if his fuckin’ life depended on it.’

‘Boots . . .’

‘What?’

‘Can we talk about this for a minute?’

‘Talk about what?’

‘Angie.’

‘Frankie, there’s nothing to say. We’re gettin’ a search warrant for the house. The Crime Scene Unit will be here in an hour.’

‘For my house?’

‘Yeah, the whole house, includin’ your mother’s apartment. The ME recovered concrete dust and paint chips from Angie’s wound. If we match that paint to paint on a surface in this house, you’re gonna have a lot of explainin’ to do. Unless, of course, you wanna pin it on your mom.’

Unable to contain himself, Drago rocked forward until his bulk was centered over his knees, then pushed himself to his feet. Boots paid the bookie no mind, his attention returning to the game. For the next several minutes, while Drago loomed, unmoving, above him, Boots watched Rivera obliterate Adrian Gonzalez on four pitches, the last a borderline, chest-high fastball that the umpire, Dan Eddings, called a strike.

‘One out,’ Littlewood said, rubbing his hands together.

‘Fuck you, Boots. I don’t give a damn about the game and neither do you.’

Littlewood’s eyes widened and he smiled. ‘You pissed off, Frankie?’

‘Yeah, now that you mention it. If you wanted to make an accusation, you should’ve done it up front. It’s not like we’re strangers.’

‘OK, you’re right. I’ve been fuckin’ with your head. But look at it from my point of view. You’ve been lyin’ to me from day one, you and your mother both, and I’ve been runnin’ around in circles when I could’ve been solvin’ crimes. No more, though. This is where all the circles intersect. We’re not only gonna find that paint, we’re gonna find traces of blood and tissue. I don’t care if you cleaned up with bleach.’

With his teammate safe in the dugout, Kevin Youkilis stepped to the plate. All hustle and determination, Youkilis was the kind of player Boots most feared, a guy who personified the scruffy, working-class image Red Sox players cultivated.

‘Here’s another one,’ Boots said, ‘who don’t give an inch.’

Rivera’s first pitch was a cutter that missed the strike zone by a foot. Though Youkilis leaned across the plate, he didn’t offer. Rivera’s second pitch was a thigh-high fastball over the outer third of the plate – a gift. Youkilis jumped on it, but made a grave error when he tried to pull the ball into left field. The pitch was too far outside and his weight was too far back on his heels. Inevitably, he topped a weak grounder to Derek Jeter, who did everything right. He charged the ball, caught it gently in the web of his glove and shoveled it over to the second baseman. Already spinning toward first, Robinson Cano leaped high in the air to avoid the sliding Pedroia as he uncorked a perfect throw. Ball and runner arrived at first virtually at the same time, but the umpire didn’t hesitate. His arms traced a wide arc away from his body. Kevin Youkilis was now on first base.

Boots watched the replays in disbelief, replays from every angle that clearly showed the ball in the first baseman’s glove while Youkilis’s foot was above the bag. Meanwhile, it was tough shit. Baseball had no instant replay rule and the umpire’s call stood, despite Joe Girardi’s passionate argument.

‘I got a bad feelin’ here,’ Boots announced as the Red Sox catcher, Kelly Shoppach, settled into the batter’s box. ‘Like, what’s next? Rivera pitched great, but these scumbags don’t give up.’

Boots glanced up at Frankie Drago who stood above him, hands balled into fists, jaw rigid, nostrils flared. ‘You got somethin’ you wanna say, Frankie?’

‘I don’t want my mother hassled.’ Drago managed to put a little menace in his tone, but the detective only turned back to the television.

‘Frankie, your mother told me that Angie never came home that afternoon. I don’t care if she lied because she loves you. I don’t care that you were always her favorite. Unless you tell me the truth, she’s fair game.’

‘So, you’re puttin’ the squeeze on me?’

‘I’m a cop. Squeezin’ criminals is what I get paid for.’

‘I know what you do for a livin’, but I can’t have my mother hassled.’

‘Then you gotta step up. You gotta tell me the truth.’

Drago’s immense torso quivered, the tension rippling through his body, from his shoulders to his knees. He wasn’t afraid of Boots Littlewood, not exactly, but there was something about Littlewood’s attitude as he watched Mariano throw a fastball that Shoppach fouled into the seats. Like Frankie Drago was no threat. Like Boots knew he’d already won.

‘All right, Boots, you want the truth,’ Drago said, ‘here it is. Like you figured, it happened on March thirteenth. Ma was sleepin’, so Angie came downstairs to watch Law and Order, which we both love, and which we been watchin’ together for years. Anyway, Angie went into the kitchen. I think she said she was gonna nuke some popcorn, but I can’t remember exactly. What I do remember is that I called to her just before the show started and she didn’t answer, so I put the DVR on pause and went to look. Boots, she was lyin’ at the bottom of the cellar steps, curled into a heap, and there was blood all around her head. I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t get my mind around it, that she could just be gone, that she . . .’

‘If you were standin’ at the top of the stairs,’ Littlewood interrupted, ‘how’d ya know she was dead?’

Boots waved off Drago’s reply as Rivera threw a cutter into the dirt. Instinctively, Youkilis took a few steps toward second, then quickly reversed field when Martin came up with the ball and fired to first. Again, ball and runner arrived at the same time, again the ump called the runner

Reviews for Dancer in the Flames

[mikedraper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is as much a family drama as a murder mystery and thriller. The main focus of the story is New York detective Boots Littlewood. He's a people person, skilled in using his resources to find suspects and people he needs to interview. He also has a good relationship with his father who is planning to remarry, and with his son, a college student, skilled in computer knowledge.The author is a former cab driver in New York and his descriptions of New York and surrounding suburbs is right on.There have been a number of murders of NYC police officers. One was on the job investigating the Lipstick Murderer. Another was a captain who thought he was invincible.Boots investigates these murders and when one of his snitches is arrested for one of the murders, he knows there is a coverup and so will have to prove his man wasn't guilty.He's assigned a partner, Jill Kelly, who is the daughter of one of the slain cops and the niece of the chief of detectives.An interesting side is Boots is a small time gambler, mostly in Yankee baseball games. It's fun to see his reactions to the Yankee games on TV or the radio.I read this over two days and enjoyed every minute.